Sweet Vengeance for a Sad Lady
by Be Rose
Summary: Dante keeps meeting the same women on his cases. She's hunting for a vampire. Dante is intrigued. A vampire hunting a vampire? He wants to know more. Who is this Vampire Lady? (This story does not contain sparkly vampires)


**Sweet Vengeance for a Sad Lady**

I first met her while I was on a case. A demon was terrorising a town, but when I got there it was gone. Then I heard it was in a different place. It led me a merry dance all across the country, east to west, south to north, and back again. When I finally caught up with it, it was fighting a woman, and losing. She pumped the magazine of her gun into the demon, then battered it with her fists until it was no more than a rag.

"You're not the one I'm looking for," she said before pulling its head clean off its shoulders.

By the time the body hit the ground she had already turned to me. She came running sniffing the air as if she was trying to get my scent. Her stance when she stopped in front of me reminded me painfully of Vergil: one hand around the saya of a katana, the other one holding the tsuka.

"Whoa, babe. I'm not the one you're looking for either," I said before she could use it on me. "I would have remembered if I'd ever met a babe like you."

"A babe?" she spat like an angry cat. "You're not him, but you're the same sort. Women are just toys to you, to be discarded when you're fed up with them. Perhaps I should kill you. At least it would help the girls you haven't defiled yet."

"Defiled? Not me, babe. Mother has taught me to have respect for women. I only take what they are willing to give. And I make sure they have only nice memories of me. So much easier afterwards."

"What they're willing to give? What? Even the innocent girls who totally fall for a man like you?"

"Never the innocents, babe. I'm here to protect the innocents. Which leads me to this demon you just killed. That was my quarry. I was expecting some payment for taking it out."

She shrugged. "It's dead, so you can pocket the money. I don't need it. I'm hunting a different creature."

"What game _are_ you hunting, babe."

"Vampire," was all she answered.

Vampire. That's was the smell I'd been trying to place. It didn't make sense though.

"Why are you hunting one of your own?" I asked in a voice so cold it could turn water into ice.

I don't like demons, everybody knows that, but vampires are even worse in my book. Killing a person is bad enough, but keeping them in a kind of half-life is even worse. Thing is, while devils and demons will happily fight and kill each other, vampires never do. A coven is like a family, no matter how the members became vampires.

The girl looked at me with blazing eyes. They were practically spraying real fire. Two red dots appeared in her neck and I realised they were the scars of her maker's bite.

"One of my own? I'm hunting the vampire that killed my family and turned me, and I will not stop until I have killed the bastard."

This was new. A vampire who still had feelings for her previous family and only hatred for the one who had introduced her to a new one. I had never heard anything like it.

Anyway, after this she turned and went. I was left to cash in the cheque for killing the demon, something that annoyed me because I hadn't earned it. I felt like a fraud.

From then on we ran into each other more often. All the time really. Sometimes I had just finished the job when she popped up and I had to tell her everything about the demon until she said it was not her target. Mostly she was fighting with or had just killed _my_ target.

One day I was late again. I saw the now familiar tall female with the katana, long dark hair whipping around her, tails of a long black leather coat flapping in the wind that scattered the dust at her feet.

"Hey, babe. This is getting to be ridiculous. Why don't we join forces instead of being in each other's way all the time?"

She looked at me questioningly.

"I had the distinct feeling you didn't like vampires."

"No, I don't but you're not a usual vampire. You're the first one I've ever known that hunts other vampires."

"There's only one I want. My 'Sire', the one who killed my family."

"That's another thing that's so strange. Vampires don't care about their former family. So why do you?"

"Because I do," she said.

She seemed to be angry. Then I saw there were tears in her eyes.

"Because I remember their bodies tossed away like rubbish, I remember my little sister crying in fear and pain when she died, I remember how much I loved them, and I miss them."

Stranger still. Surely she couldn't have missed them for more than a few minutes before she became a vampire and stopped caring. I wanted to understand this vampiric enigma, so I didn't voice my thoughts. Instead I invited her to come with me to 'Devil May Cry'. After a short time in which she studied me as if I was some insect under a microscope she agreed to come with me. Obviously she thought I was an interesting enough species.

That evening after dinner (large pizza from Toni's for me, bottle of blood from the slaughterhouse for the girl) I decided it was time to learn a bit more about this unusual vampire lady. I'm sure subtlety has its place. Not sure when, but certainly not here. I couldn't leave room for evasive answers, so I went in with all the delicacy of a wrecking ball.

"I don't get you, babe. You're a real vampire but you drink blood as if you don't like the taste. You haven't tried to bite me, though that could be because you know it could be dangerous for you. Strangest of all is how you talk about your family and you don't mean your coven. Vampires see their former friends and family as so many tasty snacks, nothing else."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you," she snapped.

"I'm not disappointed, just curious at something very, very unusual. What do you actually remember about your family?"

"What does it matter? What about you and your family? You seem to be all alone. What do you remember of yours?"

I didn't answer immediately and she continued, "Oh, let me guess. You don't want to talk about them either."

She was right in a way. I don't like to dig up sad memories, but I'd only been pondering if sharing my past with her would make her open up to me.

"I'll tell you about my family and then you tell me about yours. Deal?" I suggested.

She stared at my again with that penetrating look in her eyes. Not sure what she was looking for, or even what she saw.

"Okay," she said. "You start, and if I'm satisfied with what you tell me, I'll talk about my family."

It wasn't an out and out 'Yes', but if I told her the complete truth I was certain she would do likewise.

"I'm sure you've already worked out that I'm not entirely human," I began. "I'm half human, half devil. My name is Dante, and I'm the son of the devil Sparda and his human wife Eva."

"Sparda? The Dark Knight Sparda? You're his son?" she asked with more than a hint of scepticism in her voice.

I was surprised at her outburst. "You know Sparda?"

"Not personally, no. But every vampire coven knew of him and feared him. He was known to destroy every threat to humans, and that included vampires. His death was a reprieve for the covens. Then it was rumoured that his family had been killed. His sons would not grow up to follow in his footsteps. Now you tell me you're his son, and you really think I'll believe you, don't you?"

"Sorry, babe, I am Sparda's son. I never knew he actively sought and killed vampires. Then again, I never knew much about him. I was only a child when he disappeared. Wasn't even sure he'd died until you told me. Or was that a guess as well?"

"No doubt about it, he died. Why else would he not return to his wife and children? His love for the human Eva is one of the all-time great romantic stories."

The revelation knocked me for a loop. All my life I'd been angry with Pop for abandoning us. I'd been blaming him for the death of Mom and the loss of Vergil. Now I'd been told Pop had been a victim as well. He hadn't run away. He had been killed. It is strange to hate someone for more than twenty years, and then to find out there never had been a reason for that hatred.

My guest thought she'd had the better of me, had exposed my lies.

"Trying to make up another story? Who will you be a son of next?"

"Still a son of Sparda, babe, and properly proud of it for the first time in my life. I'd always figured he'd hightailed it out of town, embarrassed by his human wife and half breed kids. I owe Pop an apology."

"Okay. What happened next, son of Sparda?"

"Mom had to raise two half-devils on her own. Not always easy, but she coped. Vergil and I respected her. She tried to keep us safe, moving from place to place, until they caught up with us. Mom told us to hide, which I did. She was killed, Vergil was dragged into the demon realm, and I was left on my own, just a kid."

"Your mother's human scent must have masked yours while you were hiding. That's why they didn't find you. Strange that you smell so very human. Not a hint of devil about you."

Did she still doubt my relationship to Sparda? That could be remedied. I stood up and triggered. Her eyes widened in sudden fear while I loomed over her. Satisfied that I'd made my point, I released my trigger. She kept her eyes on me while I sat down again. I smiled at her.

"Still human?"

She shook her head. "You _are_ a son of Sparda. I recognise the smell."

"I thought you'd never met Pop."

"No, but my master once took me to a coven that had been destroyed by Sparda. His scent still lingered. When you changed, it was as if I was back in that place. "

"Scent, huh? Usually it's called Sparda's stink, the stench of betrayal."

"Scent, stink, whichever you prefer, son of Sparda. I'm sorry you lost your family."

"I hadn't quite lost my brother. He showed up again when I was in my late teens, when I was just starting up this place. He was obsessed with the idea of power. Sparda's power locked away. He'd linked himself to some creep who pulled a fast one on him. The jackass had turned himself into a demon, but he was no Sparda. Vergil and I killed him. The last time we fought on the same side. Soon we were fighting each other. I beat him, but couldn't keep him here. He jumped back into the demon realm. Next time I saw him he was no more than the pawn of the demon who had killed our mother."

I stopped for a moment. Losing my family was a bad enough memory, but Vergil I lost three times, and it hurt every time. I saw tears in the girl's eyes. A vampire who understood pain and loss? I took a deep breath and continued.

"I fought my brother three times during that strange mission. I believe I killed him the third time. At least his body seemed to explode, and something fell at my feet, something that told me I had just defeated my brother. Afterwards I took on the demon I had been looking for, the one responsible for the loss of my family. The bastard won't be back for a long, long time."

I'd finished my story and was waiting for her to tell hers. The silence between us became more and more oppressive. I'd started to think she would never explain why she was looking to kill her Sire, when she began to tell me her story in a soft, even voice.

"We lived on a large farm, father, mother, me and my siblings. I had one older brother who was fourteen and two younger brothers who were ten and eight. I also had two little sisters. They were mere babes of four and two years old. I was twelve at the time.

"Of course there were also a dozen people who worked for father. They were the minimum workforce the farm required. Sometimes there were more. Occasional workers who came when the need arose. I think we were well off. At least I was referred to as 'the rich girl' in the village school I went to.

"I didn't learn all that much there. A bit of reading and writing, arithmetic and lots of typical girls' things like knitting and sewing. Boys were educated, but girls only had to be good housekeepers, good wives and good mothers. I took to reading like a duck to water and one day looked through my older brother's books. The things he was learning were so much more interesting. When Father and Mother found out they were horrified. They said that a girl shouldn't read such things; that she couldn't understand such things and would become confused. A girl should be sweet and ladylike so she could find a good husband. I was sure this could not be right, but I didn't want to upset them and tried my best to be the daughter they wanted."

She stopped and I couldn't help remarking, "That sounds like a strange world you lived in. Were you Amish or some such thing?"

She had a sad smile on her face when she said, "This is how things were when I was young. It was a long time ago, and far away."

That's when I first wondered how old this 'girl' really was. I'd forgotten she was a walking corps with a lust for blood, a vampire. No doubt she was closer to two hundred than twenty.

She continued, "It was November. The morning had been cold and sunny. After I'd done my chores I went to my friends place with my sewing, something we did often. It was fun working together and talking about all sorts of things. About the boys in the village for instance. By the time we stopped the sun had gone down. Two other girls went my way as far as the edge of the village, then I was on my own. It didn't bother me. I was used to it. When I reached the farm I heard something was wrong. I heard screaming. I stayed in the shadows and sneaked in through the scullery where everything was silent. The whole house was silent. The screaming came from the servants' homes. I went up to the day room where the family would be, wondering if Father knew something was wrong."

She had started crying while she told me her story. No shaking, no howling, no stalling of the voice, just this steady stream of tears. I knew she saw it all as it had happened then, just like I had done when I had told her about mother's death. She didn't wipe the tears from her eyes but went on talking.

"I saw them lying in their easy chairs, Father and Mother, both dead. Mother had been bled to death; Father's neck had been broken. He had been thrown across his chair, tossed away. My siblings weren't there. I hoped my older brother had taken them upstairs already and they hadn't been found. Silly really. My oldest brother lay at the foot of the stairs. I had to step over him to go upstairs. My younger brothers were in their room, lying on the floor in a heap, eyes open, staring at nothing. Then I heard the baby cry. I ran towards the room I shared with my little sisters. As I walked in the little one stopped crying abruptly. Her body was thrown on top of our sister's. They looked like two little discarded ragdolls.

"Then he turned round, the murderer, and I knew I would be dead soon. I had heard of the undead, the vampires who came from nowhere, killed, and vanished again. Nobody knew where they disappeared to. All they left behind were dead bodies. He looked at me as I stood there, frozen to the spot with fear.

"'You're a pretty one,' he said. 'A bit too young yet. I think I will leave you a bit longer and come back when you've grown. You'll be a pretty thing to have about the place.'  
I shuddered as he caressed my cheek with his cold, clammy hand.  
'See you later, pretty,' he said and then he was gone."

I understood. "He let you live, because he wanted a woman and not a child. And he was the one who turned you? Of course he was. That's why you want to kill him. So he found you again. I suppose you didn't live at the farm anymore by then."

"No, I was in a convent. When the vampire left I fell to the ground and cried. I don't know how long, but I must have fallen asleep on the floor because that's where I woke up. I just started doing things without thinking. Put my baby sister in her cot. Straightened the clothes of my other sister, then did the same for my younger brothers. I was trying to move my elder brother from the stairs when the townsfolk arrived. The son of one of the servants had managed to escape and reach the village. They thought at first I was a vampire as well, but the priest cried out that I hadn't been bitten. He made me hold a crucifix. When it didn't burn me they believed I was still human. I told the priest what the vampire had said and he suggested I hide in the convent; one nun among many is not easy to find. It wasn't quite my dream come true, but I did what he said. I went to the convent and in time took the vows, hoping I would be safe."

"But you weren't."

She shook her head. "Ten years passed without troubles. The priest and the Mother Superior of the convent thought the vampire wouldn't come for me anymore. When an epidemic broke out I was sent with a few others to help out in a hospital. That's where he found me. He waited until I was alone, grabbed me and bit me before I realised who had taken me. He forced me to drink his blood. At first I didn't want to, but when I thought about my family I wanted revenge, something I couldn't do if I were dead, so I drank of him, all the time thinking of those he'd killed, hating him for what I was doing. And that never changed.

"He took me to his home, an old mansion that looked abandoned and neglected on the outside. Inside though there was luxury like I had never seen. It was the home for his entire coven, men, women and even children. He rushed me to the room that would be mine from then on. My clothes were ripped off my body and he raped me then and there. It was the beginning of my nightmare existence as his slave. He used me, tied me up, hit me, whatever took his fancy. He would make me wear the most exquisite dresses, always too revealing, to show me to the rest of the coven. His trophy, his possession. It only increased my hatred for him.

"Then of course the inevitable happened. I'd stopped fighting him. Not because I'd given up, but because it was easier not to resist. He was annoyed at my lack of response and tried to provoke me into reacting. He said the most disgusting things about my family: that Father had cheated on Mother, that Mother had spread her legs for every worker on the farm, that Father had … 'tampered' with my younger siblings while Mother had looked on in glee. It took all my effort not to slap him or spit in his face, but I managed. One day he arrived with another pretty girl, told me to get out because his new love would need my room. I left and joined the other discarded girls in the mansion. While they were desperately trying to catch the eye of a new man, I spent most of my time in the library. Finally I could learn all the things that had been deemed unsuitable for me.

"I avoided the parties in the evening, but sometimes every female member of the coven had to attend. Women were after all just property. Even after he had discarded me, my Sire still owned me, and would do until he either gave me away as a present, or sold me to another."

"Didn't he know slavery is abolished?"

"It is no joke, Son of Sparda. That's how vampire society works. Women are property, men are masters. Even a man who's newly turned is still a master. His Sire will present him with his first slave girl. So you see, I had no choice. I attended, and was bored to tears. Every party seemed a copy of the previous one. I knew who would be there, I knew who would grab which girl to spend the night with, who would fight with whom over the new additions to the coven. I'd seen it all before and was not interested in the least.

"An older man came in, someone I'd only seen once. He'd been pointed out to me as the best swordsman, not just in our coven but generally the best, humans included. I looked at him and wondered if he would be willing to teach me. He'd seen me staring and went to talk to my Sire, my master. To complain about my less than demure attitude I thought. Loud noise at the door drew my attention away from them. The vampire who'd come in with such racket was the cruellest creature in the coven. Every girl he'd ever had ended up being disfigured in some way. He looked around the place until he noticed me and came straight towards me. He ordered me to go with him, but I declined. He was not my master which meant I _could_ say 'no' to him. He grabbed my arm and was trying to pull me along with him. I resisted as much as I could. As usual nobody interfered. They were so brain-dead as well as undead.  
The old fighter arrived and said, 'Excuse me. That is my property you are harming. I have just bought her from her Sire.'  
He put his arm around my shoulders in a very possessive way.  
'Today or another day. One day I'll have her,' the creep sneered.  
Moments later he pounced on another girl."

"Another one for you to hunt down?" I queried.

A smile flitted across her face. "Done and dusted," she said. "Where was I? Oh, yes. My new master left the party early with me in tow. When we'd arrived in his quarters in the mansion he asked why I had been looking at him.  
'I want you to teach me to fight, so I can kill my Sire,' I told him.  
Perhaps I had been foolish to confess my intentions so abruptly. Five long minutes of silence later he agreed.  
'Having a new apprentice will make a welcome change,' he said.

"I had all the time in the world to learn, and he was willing to teach me everything he knew. After a slow start I began to improve. Eventually, I don't know how much later, the day came that I beat my new master. It was around that time that the vampires became the hunted instead of the hunters. Covens had been attacked and exterminated. It was at this time that he took me to the coven that Sparda had wiped out. This was decades before he met your mother. When our coven was attacked I was lucky to be with the old man. He knew how to escape. It was his idea to move here, to 'the new world'.

"When we arrived here, we became father and daughter. In calling me 'daughter' the old man had given me my freedom. I was no longer his property, but a free woman, a Lady Vampire, one of only a handful. We had a pleasant life in the city, enjoying its night life. Nobody realised we were vampires. It was nearly a normal life. Too normal. The day I saw my Sire again one evening at the opera, I realised just how much I had eased into this life. He had disappeared the following day, but the fire of my hatred had been ignited again. My 'father' noticed the change.  
'You want to hunt him, don't you?' he said. 'It's not for me, girl. I'm tired of living. If you go I'll ask you to kill me first.'  
I couldn't do that. He was a vampire, but I liked him. He really was like a father to me, had never treated me as a slave. I postponed my departure. Days, weeks, months passed, until 'father' decided it was enough. It was New Year's Day. We'd been celebrating all night and came home well into the new day. We sat in his study with the blinds down having a drink.  
'The last,' he said.  
I didn't realise that was exactly what he meant. He kept glancing at the blinds where the first light of the day would appear. When it did he got up, and came to me.  
'Goodbye, daughter,' he said, and kissed me on the head. 'Make sure you do what you've always wanted to do.'  
Before I realised what he was planning he'd walked out into the garden, into the sunshine, and died.'"

"He didn't sound like a normal vampire either."

"He wasn't. You see, turning into a vampire requires two actions. The bite of the Sire and the drinking of the Sire's blood. The promise of eternal life, wealth, and for the girls pretty clothes and jewellery seduces the victim on the verge of death to drink the Sire's blood. Afterwards there is no memory of their past or their family. I remained myself because I thought of my family, not of my Sire's promises. My vampire father let his son turn him because he wanted to stay with the only family he had left. That's why he retained his memories and his true self. That's why he became tired of the life he led.

"After the death of 'Father' I became a fulltime hunter, mainly of vampires, but if a demon crosses my path, I take it out as well. I ran into the creep about a month after the old man's death.  
'I'll teach you to be a proper slave,' he said.  
Those were his last words. I cut his head off with Inadzuma, the katana the old man had given me, and staked his heart.  
Now you know my story. Does it satisfy you, Son of Sparda?"

"Just call me Dante. So what about us joining forces? Are you interested or not?"

"If you don't mind working with a vampire …"

I shrugged. "I wouldn't have asked if I minded. Come, I'll show you your room. It has good shutters; they won't let in any light."

She was quite a girl. She could have been a perfect mate if she hadn't been a vampire. We worked well together. With her help I got more jobs done than ever before. Her Sire though remained as elusive as ever.

We'd been working together for just under a year when she didn't come down one evening. I went to see what was happening but she had locked the door.

I knocked but the only reaction I got was, "Go away, leave me alone."

When I returned from the first job I'd done on my own in a while she was waiting for me.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I couldn't come with you, or even let you in. I had a lust for blood I could barely contain. I wanted to bite someone; I wanted to taste human blood." She shuddered. "It's gone now. I don't feel it anymore."

"How come you have bloodlust for human blood?" I asked. "You only drink animal blood, and I'm sure you've never bitten a human."

"True, I've never bitten someone, but until I became the old man's property human blood was the only thing I could get. Refusing was not an option. I saw a girl refusing once and she was force-fed blood until it came out of her eyes, her nose, her ears, her mouth. She was left in a puddle of blood. Her master said that whoever picked her up could keep her. Somebody did. A week later I saw her and her new master walk out into the sun, arms wrapped around each other, a smile on their faces. "

"Whatever, but you're no bloodthirsty vampire, babe. It won't happen again."

A few months later the bloodlust returned, with another episode two weeks after. The next period was a lot longer. We'd even started thinking it would not come back, but it did. Despite these unsettling moments of bloodlust we still continued working together.

A visit to the pizza parlour on the way home from a job finally gave us a lead on her Sire. I'd been leafing through a paper while I was waiting for my order to be made ready. There was an article about some people found dead with two puncture wounds in their necks. I showed it to her and she nearly screamed while pointing at a photograph of some high society do.

"It's him," she said.

Next to the daughter of one of the more important families in the city stood a very handsome man, his arm around her waist. The girl seemed very taken with her companion. He seemed a bit too pretty boy for me.

The following day we went to investigate. The family mansion looked the ideal place to start a new coven according to my expert on all things vampiric.

"He'll kill the parents and turn the girl," she said. "The fact that her parents are still alive probably means she's still human."

For days one or both of us stayed near the place watching and waiting for the vampire to appear. Three weeks after our discovery of his whereabouts we were in our usual hideout. My reserve of patience was running low. I figured if he didn't show up that night I'd stop watching. That of course was the cue for the gates to open and the vampire to come strolling through. The girl jumped out in front of him while I came out more sedately. This was her fight, not mine, so no need to hurry on my part.

When he saw the weapons she carried the vampire started to laugh.

"Well, well. The old boy taught you some tricks and now you think you can take me on. Ridiculous. You're only a woman. You can't kill me. You'll never be able to fight well enough."

"Shall we try?" she asked, her hand on the katana.

Suddenly he pulled something out of the walking stick he was carrying. It was a canne-épée, a sword stick, and it looked deadly.

"Come on, pretty one. I'll send you to mammy and daddy," he mocked her. "It won't even take long. You're only a woman, and women cannot fight."

Boy, was he wrong.

At first it looked as if he had the upper hand. She seemed to retreat from him, even though his cuts and thrusts could be parried with ease. He looked at her with contempt, a feeble female who thought she could fight him.

"Prepare to die, pretty one," he said. "I've had enough of you now."

"And I of you," she answered.

He began to fight in earnest. Not only did she parry every strike with ease but she took control of the fight. As fast as the lightning it was named after her katana Inadzuma flashed with every stroke. At first the vampire matched her, increasing the speed of his own strikes. It was not enough though. The katana was no more than a streak of light that danced around the vampire. With an arcing strike she pivoted to face me and stopped. A flick of her hand cleared the blood from the katana. The vampire stood behind the girl, his sword down. It didn't even hack at her exposed back. With a smile the girl sheathed her sword. As it clicked into place the vampire fell the pieces. A quick twist and a stake pierced the vampire's still beating heart. Next moment it was nothing but dust.

"It is done," she said.

Her smile was still sad, but she seemed satisfied, fulfilled. She started walking, but instead of going to Devil May Cry she went towards the hill nearby. She went all the way to the top and sat down on the grass. I joined her. Beneath us were the park and the city beyond. It was a beautiful sight. Lights started to come on in the buildings as people woke up. Streetlights lit up the roads for the early commuters. The high-rises in the distance were like shadows of mountains hovering behind the old town in front of us.

"Come on, babe," I said. "I know this is the best view in the city, but we have to get you inside before the sun comes up."

"I want to see the sun come up over the city," she answered.

"You can't, babe. You're a vampire. Remember? Vampire plus sun equals dust?"

"I know. It's for the best, you know, otherwise you might have to kill me one day. I'd rather choose my own death if it's all the same to you."

"There's no reason to die. We could continue as partners; we make a good team."

"I know, and if I were a demon instead of a vampire, I'd say yes immediately, but I'm just a bloodthirsty killer."

"Babe, you really are no-"

"Let me finish," she interrupted. "I've told you about the bloodlust I feel sometimes. What I didn't tell you is that it got worse every time, more difficult to beat. Only my anger and my need for revenge kept me human. I've succeeded now. I've killed the murderer of my parents and siblings, my Sire. My goal has been reached, and I'm afraid that one day I'll become a true vampire. I'd rather avoid that. Call it a pre-emptive strike."

I didn't know what to say. She was right, and brave to make this decision. All I could do was be there with her in her last moments.

Side by side we sat on the hill as the sun came up slowly. The beauty of the old houses appeared out of the featureless night. She'd started shaking and I put my arm around her.

"It's beautiful," she said. "It's the first time in two hundred years that I see the sun come up and it's even more stunning than I remembered."

The sun rose higher and higher. The predawn reds leaked out of the houses as they took on their true colours. There was not much time left. I wanted to protect her but there was no cover.

"Dante, take my katana and my gun. They won't disappear when I become dust."

"I will. I'll keep them in memory of you," I said.

They would just be weapons though, not like the Devil Arms that contained a remnant of the demon that wielded them.

The sun had completely come up from below the horizon. She cried as she watched the city shining in the morning sun. I held her closer to me. With her head on my shoulder, my arm around her she crumbled away into ashes.

THE END


End file.
